{"id":29044,"date":"2018-09-21T06:34:19","date_gmt":"2018-09-21T10:34:19","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/cinema-crazed.com\/blog\/?p=29044"},"modified":"2018-09-21T08:00:23","modified_gmt":"2018-09-21T12:00:23","slug":"the-bootleg-files-andersons-own-gang-comedy","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.cinema-crazed.com\/blog\/2018\/09\/21\/the-bootleg-files-andersons-own-gang-comedy\/","title":{"rendered":"The Bootleg Files: Anderson’s Own Gang Comedy"},"content":{"rendered":"

BOOTLEG FILES 654:<\/strong> \u201cAnderson\u2019s Own Gang Comedy\u201d (1926 fan film inspired on the Our Gang series).<\/p>\n

LAST SEEN:<\/strong> On YouTube.
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\nAMERICAN HOME VIDEO:<\/strong> None.<\/p>\n

REASON FOR BOOTLEG STATUS:<\/strong> Partially-lost film with no perceived commercial value.<\/p>\n

CHANCES OF SEEING A COMMERCIAL DVD RELEASE: <\/strong>Not likely.<\/p>\n

For every Hollywood franchise that gets screen time at the multiplex, it seems there are an endless number of fan films created by overenthusiastic movie lovers who want to be part of cinematic fun. But fans films are not a recent phenomenon. Indeed, the earliest known fan film was made back in 1926, and it was also part of a strange trend that brought a mix of filmmaking and hucksterism to small town America.
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Beginning in the 1910s and lasting into the early 1970s, there were a group of individuals known as itinerant filmmakers. These folks would travel to the smaller cities and towns across the country with a distinctive proposition: they would recruit locals to appear in short films that would be screened at the neighborhood theaters. These filmmakers would make money by negotiating a fee from local businesses to have their stores featured in the films, and often movie-mad folks would pay to appear on camera. Since the localities targeted by these itinerant filmmakers were never included in Hollywood movies, the residents would flock to the local bijou to see their friends and neighbors up on the big screen \u2013 with the filmmakers pocketing the profits from the show.<\/p>\n

Today, the vast majority of the works created by the itinerant filmmakers are considered lost \u2013 they had no commercial value outside of the places where they were shot, and the filmmakers rarely had the foresight to preserve their output. <\/p>\n

In 1926, a pair of itinerant filmmakers by the name of Sammy Fox and R.R. Beatty arrived in Anderson, South Carolina, a city of 20,000, and made the acquaintance of Perry C. Osteen, the owner of the local Egyptian Theatre. Fox and Beatty reportedly presented themselves as Hollywood filmmakers with the Pathe studio, although contemporary scholars have found no evidence to back their claim \u2013 and, for all we know, their names might have been phony. In any event, Fox and Beatty convinced Osteen that they should collaborate on a short film based on the popular \u201cOur Gang\u201d comedies by Hal Roach that featured a cast of precocious children who were always up to some sort of mischief. A casting call was placed in a local newspaper and it seemed like nearly every kid in Anderson turned up for the three-day shoot; two of Osteen\u2019s sons were cast in the gang.<\/p>\n

\u201cAnderson\u2019s Own Gang Comedy\u201d opens with a shot of the Egyptian Theatre, which has an announcement for an Our Gang film on its marquee. A large number of children stand next to the theater and start to wave as the camera pans back and forth along the street. We are quickly introduced to the Anderson version of the celluloid gang, with an intertitle telling us they are why \u201cmothers get grey-headed.\u201d This group goes by the names Freckles, Mary, Fat, Jackie and Toughie. This gang walks down the street and are followed the mass of kids who were waving at the camera a minute earlier.<\/p>\n

The one hat-tip to the Hal Roach films is a black character called Farina, described by the intertitle as \u201cthe dark cloud of the gang.\u201d Farina wears a straw hat and oversized shoes. An adult white couple stops him on the street and gives him a coin, with the intertitle offering their dialogue \u201cShake them dogs boy \u2013 shake \u2018em\u201d \u2013 at which point Farina does a dance in the middle of the sidewalk.<\/p>\n

From here, the film wobbles through an endless series of half-considered vignettes. Toughy and another boy named Mickey get into a fight, with dozens of kids circling around them as fists are thrown. Toughy sells newspapers while his friends watch. Farina buys candy but is tricked into distraction by the other kids who steal his goodies. Farina takes it upon himself to direct traffic, resulting in a massive jam. Farina buys bananas for the gang, but gets stuck with the smallest of the fruit. The kids harass a man on crutches who is identified as \u201cOld Man Grouch,\u201d and then throw a pie in the face of another man on crutches. A newly married couple called Ima Sapp and Izzy Goffy are stopped by the kids, who begin dancing in front of them and then try to shake up their car. The gang are passengers on a wagon in a circus parade. And then, the film abruptly stops \u2013 the second of the two reels for this production is lost.<\/p>\n

If Fox and Beatty were Hollywood filmmakers, they were remarkably untalented. At a few points, Beatty could be seen hand-cranking his 35mm camera in the reflections from a store window and a street display mirror. The gang, for the most part, existed as a bland band \u2013 the raucous Toughy and the beleaguered Farina are the only ones with traces of a personality. And the youngsters\u2019 interactions with adults quickly become obnoxious \u2013 especially when they decide to throw a pie at a man on crutches who did nothing to deserve such pastry indignity.<\/p>\n

But, then again, this was never created with the idea of making great art. Instead, Fox and Beatty were after a quick buck, and they were successful. \u201cAnderson\u2019s Own Gang Comedy\u201d was shot from September 18-20 in 1926, a Saturday-to-Monday endeavor, and it was on the screen at the Egyptian Theatre one week later for a brief run. After the Anderson locals saw themselves on the screen, the film was forgotten. The first reel managed to find its way into the archives of the University of South Carolina \u2013 what happened to the second reel is anyone\u2019s guess \u2013 and a not-pristine copy of this rare work is on YouTube<\/a>.<\/p>\n

Whether Hal Roach knew that itinerant filmmakers were ripping off his Our Gang series is unknown, and it seems the Anderson production was not the only one \u2013 historian Caroline Frick has identified at least 10 more Our Gang fan films shot around the U.S. and in Canada\u2019s Manitoba province during the late 1920s and early 1930s. Looking back, it\u2019s hard to imagine that these itinerant filmmakers would be aware that they were starting a trend with fan films \u2013 and if \u201cAnderson\u2019s Own Gang Comedy\u201d had not barely survived, we\u2019d be unaware of where the fan film trend actually took root.<\/p>\n

IMPORTANT NOTICE: While this weekly column acknowledges the presence of rare film and television productions through the so-called collector-to-collector market, this should not be seen as encouraging or condoning the unauthorized duplication and distribution of copyright-protected material, either through DVDs or Blu-ray discs or through postings on Internet video sites.
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\nListen to \u201cThe Online Movie Show with Phil Hall<\/a>\u201d on SoundCloud, with new episodes beginning on September 24.<\/strong><\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

BOOTLEG FILES 654: \u201cAnderson\u2019s Own Gang Comedy\u201d (1926 fan film inspired on the Our Gang series). LAST SEEN: On YouTube. AMERICAN HOME VIDEO: None. REASON FOR BOOTLEG STATUS: Partially-lost film with no perceived commercial value. CHANCES OF SEEING A COMMERCIAL DVD RELEASE: Not likely. For every Hollywood franchise that gets screen time at the multiplex, […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":19,"featured_media":29045,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[1513],"tags":[2085,219,2086,1632,2088,2087,939],"class_list":["post-29044","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-bootleg-files","tag-andersons-own-gang-comedy","tag-comedy","tag-fan-films","tag-hal-roach","tag-itinerant-filmmakers","tag-our-gang","tag-short-films"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.cinema-crazed.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/29044","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.cinema-crazed.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.cinema-crazed.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.cinema-crazed.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/19"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.cinema-crazed.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=29044"}],"version-history":[{"count":2,"href":"https:\/\/www.cinema-crazed.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/29044\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":29047,"href":"https:\/\/www.cinema-crazed.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/29044\/revisions\/29047"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.cinema-crazed.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/29045"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.cinema-crazed.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=29044"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.cinema-crazed.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=29044"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.cinema-crazed.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=29044"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}